Tuesday, March 19, 2024 -
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Another Tisha b’Av

However you define it, the exile drags on and another Tisha b’Av is upon us.

If you define the exile as an unredeemed world, surely the scourge of terrorism — the sheer inhumanity — alongside slavery and poverty, demonstrate the exile only too poignantly.

If you define the exile as the absence of the ingathering of all Jews to Israel and of the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, their absence is evident, the great growth of Jewry in Israel notwithstanding.

If you define the exile as the gradual weakening and assimilation of the Jewish people around the world, large segments of the Jewish people are disappearing. Synagogues merge or fold. Other Jewish institutions struggle for attendance and support.

Another Tisha b’Av, the national Jewish day of mourning, is upon us. The exile persists. Sometimes it is not the committed response to all of our problems that takes center stage; sometimes, it is just mourning for what we have lost. That is Tisha b’Av.

Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News

 




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